Finding yourself and, at the same time, a job that will first of all let you survive and then also bring you fulfilment is not easy at all after you finish university. I don’t know if it’s the same for other people, but reality hit me really hard when, after successfully completing my master’s degree, I tried to set out into the working world.
The question I had to ask myself was: what can I actually do, apart from studying? And writing a PhD was definitely not an option.
The second thing is how to even find that something? Not to mention how to apply successfully for a position, how to get an interview and how to get the job.
Reality After a Master’s Degree Is Not Like in the Movies
Let me tell you straight away, it isn’t easy.
And it’s great when you watch all those films and series, the imaginary characters on social media who hold all the strings in their hands and who, purely because of how exceptional they are, were headhunted by some amazing companies and landed their dream job, or, even better, the ones who got hired after one, in words: one, application.
Yeah… Sure! Can we stop lying to ourselves for a moment? It’s f*cking hard!
First of all, at 30 I no longer have a clue what my dream job is. And what do we do with that? For a year now I’ve been actively racking my brain every single day: what would I like to do, what should I do for a living?
That doesn’t mean I’ve spent the last year sitting at home doing nothing. On the contrary, until recently I was working not one but two jobs. Neither of them in my field, and both far from what we would call interesting and fulfilling work. Neither job is bad, physically hard or mentally demanding. They are jobs that are fine to do for a while, to survive, to buy time while you figure out who you are and what fulfils you professionally.
But.
How long do you have to do jobs like that before the moment of enlightenment comes (if it ever does)? And what if that cinematic or biblical moment never comes at all?
In theory, you can do anything and get by. But I don’t want that. First of all, I’m not that type, and secondly, honestly and without false modesty, I didn’t come this far to settle for average jobs that don’t demand or use even a tiny bit of my intellectual capacity (which I know I have).
A Year in a Job That Isn’t Yours: When Is Enough Enough?
I woke up from my zombie state the moment I realised that the job I had meant as a temporary solution until I found something permanent and better, given our whole uncertain situation here (visa and so on), I had been doing not for a couple of months, as I had originally planned, but for a whole year! That scared me.
As I said, the job is perfectly fine. It isn’t too strenuous, I choose which days and how many hours I work (of course there is a set minimum of 4 hours per shift and 10 hours a month), my colleagues are very nice and I never felt bad for a single moment.
In fact, in the first months I found it surprisingly interesting to learn about fashion, sales and that whole world I knew absolutely nothing about. Then everything became routine – I work and don’t think, and I liked that compared to what I had been doing for years before (studying, which I absolutely consider work – more about that in this post). Marko often said that I enjoyed working in the shop because it gave me a mental break from everything that had happened to us. And he wasn’t far from the truth: in those few hours in the shop I only had time for my own thoughts.
But how long can this go on? I don’t want to turn around in 10 or 20 years and ask myself where my life went and what I could have done but didn’t, just because I found a way to feed my family. However strong the pull towards comfort is, especially when you are a mother, I was stronger.
At some point you have to step into the unknown again.
Why I Quit My Job and What I Learned
I decided to quit and to actively work on myself again. To spend the time I used to spend in the shop on my own, to finally put an end to searching for myself and set off on some path, instead of still groping around in the fog, not even knowing what I’m looking for. And that can go on forever if we don’t say ENOUGH.
When the fog finally lifts, it’s usually a sunny day, isn’t it?
Lessons Nobody Teaches You at University
What I have learned from this whole experience is this: that it’s ok to do something you don’t love per se; that it’s ok not to have all the big life questions answered at 30, in fact some of them are only now opening up; that it’s ok not to know who you are if you’ve lost the compass of what you want to do and circumstances demanded a different path.
We grow up believing that everything has to happen in order: school, university, master’s, job, family. But it doesn’t!
And that is the biggest lesson I have learned in the past year. No, I’m not late for anything just because I haven’t found myself in the working world yet, because I still don’t know what my heart really beats for (apart from writing and reading books, family aside, of course).
I’m not a hopeless case just because, even after 50+ job applications, I haven’t had more than one, in words: one, interview (and that was for the second job I currently have, which, by the look of things, I may soon be changing too).
You do not have to have it all. (Read that again!)
Because, as G-Eazy says, it’s better to risk it all than to play it safe. We don’t need a safety net – if I fall, I’ll get hurt, but first and foremost I’ll try with all my might not to fall and to persevere in reaching my goals. Because as long as we have something to fall back on (parents who support us, a job that pays the bills but nothing more, a relationship that doesn’t work, but it’s better to be with someone than alone) we won’t be able to move forward and we won’t try hard enough to reach our goal, whatever it may be.
Only uncertainty and, in a way, fear can really push us forward, out of stagnation and out of our comfort zone.
As much as all this sounds like a self-help text, it is and it isn’t. Officially, I’m not an expert in that field, but on the other hand all of this has a very sobering effect on me.
I have removed one safety net from under my feet, and there is one left. So I will either fall and hurt myself even more, or I will finally move forward (in whatever direction). A year is just about enough time for a break. Enough. Let’s move on. Even though I don’t know where…
My current goal is to find a new goal. It is not much, but it is a start.
Keep your fingers crossed for me.
S-Mama
P.S. 2026: I did find a new goal after all. In autumn 2022 I started working in a field I didn’t even know existed in 2020, the world of software for the energy sector, and I started completely from scratch. Today I’m a senior consultant there. And writing? It stayed, and this blog is the proof. Removing that safety net turned out not to be a fall, but the first step.
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